Temple Grandin's Mother Links Autism With Viewing Child Pornography

“It’s a disturbing trend we cannot ignore” begins what I can only describe as a hit piece on autistic men penned by none other than Temple Grandin’s mother, Eustacia Cutler, for the Daily Beast. I call the article, entitled “A Toxic Autism Secret,” a hit piece because it weaves without an iota of evidence a horror story of unfathered autistic men trapped in a preadolescence of sexuality that leads them to pursue child pornography as a salve for their sexual urges. As if it weren’t egregious enough to imply all of this–again, without an iota of evidence–Cutler also introduces that debunked “divorce rates of 90%” in autism families and tosses in some infantilization of grown autistic men while she’s at it.

While there’s no trend, disturbing or otherwise, supported by any data in Cutler’s piece for the Daily Beast, the article itself is, to say the least, disturbing. It’s evidently not enough that autistic men must deal with a public perception that they are unempathetic, that they are violent. No. Now people must also, by allusion and innuendo only, imply that autistic men also are pedophiles, at least at heart, and infantile pedophiles, at that.

Cutler opens with an anecdote of an autistic man labeled for life as a predator for being busted with child pornography on his computer. She then goes on to say:

One of the least understood and least discussed aspects of male sex offenders is the sexual response of those who live with autism. Part of the reason is that the group is very small; numbers are not available, and few arrests are on record. However, its significance points to a major lack: we don’t yet understand the social neurology of autism, nor its link to the role of supportive parental guidance. Particularly that of fathers for their sons.

Yet, in spite of this open admission that data are lacking, that numbers are not available, and that “few arrests are on record,” she then tries to trace a connection from this undocumented alleged phenomenon of autistic men pursuing online child pornography to how their alleged infantile self perception leads them to younger aged persons as objects of sexual interest, how their obsession with computers takes them online in that pursuit, and how that disproved “high divorce rate” among autism families means that no fathers are present, which means that fathers aren’t teaching their autistic sons about sex (and somehow, doctors are AWOL, too), which means that their autistic sons then … seek out child pornography online. Got that?

Culter gives us only two pieces of data in this article, and one of them isn’t even correct. The divorce rate isn’t what’s widely reported or what Cutler cites. Perhaps aware of this, Cutler also offers up a lack of fathers at autism-related conferences as evidence that fathers aren’t around to teach their sons about sex, but … um, couldn’t that simply be because the fathers are … working and not attending conferences?

The entire article follows this theme, one assumption after another, one tenuous extrapolation after another, relying only on one paragraph of quoted musings from an expert and the “wonderings” of a forensic psychologist. And it offers up one insulting description of autistic men (or, as she calls them, “ASDs”) after another. This one’s a gem:

The other big help—one that many teachers use—is the computer. Computers and ASDs think alike: both substitute memory and logic for social spontaneity. …

Along with struggling with social spontaneity, ASDs also have trouble with context, i.e. the relationship of one object to another, of one situation to another. So does a computer. A computer cannot distinguish the relevant difference between a misspelled e-mail address and bringing a gun through airport security. Nor can a computer deal with random. At best it carries a program that imitates random. Ditto those on the autism spectrum.

People do research how autistic people approach and think about sex, and perhaps not shockingly, just as it is with violence and autism, the real risk for autistic people is being the victim, not the perpetrator–the one bit of correct data that Cutler does include in her article. It’s one parents certainly are aware of. And if you really want some detailed anecdotal insights into autism and sexuality, Amy Harmon wrote a wonderful piece in the New York Times, “Navigating Love and Autism,” and Laura Shumaker has written movingly and candidly about her son Matthew’s own search for an adult relationship. An autistic blogger, C.S. Wyatt, responding to this article, not only writes about his own adult sexuality but also is working on a pocket guide for autistic people about sexuality. He calls this Daily Beast article “absurd on some levels.”

Autism parents and autistic people aren’t operating in a vacuum. We have resources, and we frequently discuss in our communities topics of sexuality and sexual behavior and relationships and autism. We even have fathers around for all of this back and forth. [Full disclosure: I am a volunteer editor at the last-linked site.] If there is some small risk that an autistic man will pursue online child pornography viewing (and no one’s produced any evidence that such a risk exceeds that of the general population), then the way to address that issue isn’t to manufacture blame against allegedly absent, uncaring fathers (and doctors and computers) but to weave that aspect into all of the other discussions of sexuality in the autistic community.

Anecdotes obviously are just that: Personal stories that can be illustrative, but not global, examples of a particular phenomenon. Even when told fully, they at most capture the individuality of the humans they involve but at least don’t reduce those humans to harmful caricatures and offer up equally harmful assumptions. And regardless of how compelling they might be, they don’t form a “trend,” disturbing or toxic or secret or otherwise. “A wise man proportions his beliefs to the evidence,” said David Hume. The wise reader, when taking in anything having to do with autism, would do well to do the same.

[Update: John Elder Robison has also written about this much less critically at Pyschology Today. While he makes a possibly valid point that some autistic men who do view child pornography might do so from different motivations and vulnerabilities than the general population, there still are no data provided. In addition, it is one thing to acknowledge differences in motivation between populations but another thing entirely to assert that autistic men have a greater risk for committing this crime than the general population when there is no evidence suggesting that, much less to trace this alleged greater risk to speculated factors. Update as of 2 a.m. EST: Robison has made some amendments to his post based on feedback from the autism community.]

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Thank you for writing this. It is hard to clearly describe just how wrong a lot of thinking is. The importance of clearly rebutting allegations like this about a large group is invaluable, particularly when the group cannot, or to a large degree do not, defend themselves publicly. The ideas spread by Ms. Cutler, among others, are quite sad, as they lead to adolescents being given Lupron and the like to cure “problems” that are not actually present. We need to exhibit an abundance of caution when it comes to ASD research and anecdote. Particularly we need to keep them separate.

I disagree with C.S. Wyatt: it’s not “absurd on some levels”, it’s insulting on every level.

It’s insulting to autists generally for the absurd and unsupported assumptions and stereotypes she makes about us qua autists. It’s insulting to men generally for the assumptions and generalisations she makes on male sexuality and how we learn about it. It is further, as you describe, deeply insulting to autistic men for the double whammy of patronising infantilisation and assumed predatory tendencies. It is insulting to anyone with reason for its leap from a single uncited anecdote to an overarching theory of autistic male deviancy (and the acknowledgement that she’s doing so in the complete absence of any data or understanding of what she’s talking about does not slow her down in the slightest). And it’s insulting to her own daughter in the way she so blatantly namedrops Temple in lieu of having any actual authority in her own right to make the ex cathedra pronouncements that she does.

And then she has the unmitigated gall to quote Tony Atwood on ASD suicides, and claim that this somehow supports her thesis.

That piece is not just wrong, it is demonstrably stupid in its failures of logic, of evidence, and of rhetoric.

Thank you Emily for your article and David for your comment. People are free to think, say and write whatever crazy notions they have, so the bulk of my anger is directed at the Daily Beast. The admission to having no evidence or facts. The odd, out-of-nowhere links to divorce and suicide. There is no way to read that article and not see the absurdity in it. So careless. So sad.

Excellent article, I particularly enjoyed the barely contained rage of the author as I certainly identified with it as I read the article. Now, that my apoplectic fit has subsided somewhat I have another idea to throw out there. It seems this “Ms. Cutler” has an uncontrollable desire to bring pedophilia into a larger discussion that involves her, she goes quite far out of her way as well as out of realities way to fantasize correlations and causation’s with zero evidence except her own penetrating interest in pedophilia and child pornography. In short, I think she is projecting her own sexual frustrations and possible deeply hidden desires on a group of people who will not rise up against her “article” or her written accusations. It seems she may have some sexual issues of her own that she might want to seek therapy for.

Oh no, I don’t think it’s so baseless. Although I would rather realign the idea that she probably doesn’t have paedophilic tendencies in to the far more likely possibilities that a) she hates autistics, because she doesn’t care how much this will damage their image and b) she is resentful of fathers, because Temple’s Dad wanted his daughter confined to a mental institution.

It’s no surprise. Autistics are used to narcissists projecting their evils on to autistics. That’s where the claim that we lack empathy came from in the first place. It has been disproven since 2007 and still anti-Autistics use it to denounce or ignore us. You kind of get the feeling they don’t want to help you, if they don’t want to listen.

Some people need to get over the fact that Autistics are the prime representative of Autistics, fast.

Wow–that was astonishingly awful. I can’t believe someone published that piece. Thanks for bringing it to my attention though. If I had heard about it from someone in passing I would have thought it was a spoof of some sort.

Emily kudos’ thank you for clarifying this for the public. To see Temple’s mom slander Autism is totally surprising. As a journalist who aspires like yourself this is some of the most unprecedented trash ever witnessed. A completely slanted article with an agenda that is unfounded. Autistic people are much less likely than mainstream ‘ a – typical ‘ people to engage in this type of behavior. Our society seems to be attempting to use innocent Autistic children as the scapegoat for the misbehavior and evils propogated by your everyday suburban kid or adult. When you look at statistics and real facts the reality is most violence and hate crimes are perpetrated by mainstream people – this is the elephant in the closet – the reason for misleading disinformation such as this article you have clarified. Great work Emily again thanks on behalf of Autistic children who deserve love and support.